They moved down the hall in semi tight formation. This meaning Sowon was at the front, Eunha a half step behind her, and the rest of team one following closely behind, but not as close as Eunha was to Sowon. Umji had to keep their field of immunity after all.

The halls were free of students oddly, but the few that they saw were slightly off, as if they were intoxicated, a possible side effect of inhaling pollen of such properties, but even though Umji had confirmed that the pollen had stopped blowing in, they were cautious.

“Sowon unnie, what do you think the reason for the pollen is? Our school is the most popular for nature mages.”

“You mentioned it had to be powerful nature mages. The amount here at your level is surprisingly little. But our staff should be able to handle it. I’m not worried on that part.”

She paused to look around a corner before pushing forwards towards the nurses’ offices.

“Reason for a semi harmless but still illegal pollen? A possible test, to see how well the students fared against poison. Even if this wasn’t anything lethal, it messes with the mind and the body. I’m thinking along the lines of an invasion, but that’s a worst-case scenario.”

“Then is there another harmless reason?”

“That one of the students had bought the wrong ingredients for a love potion and it fell in the vent system. But that’s just a hopeful guess, most likely untrue, no matter what the school gives for an excuse.”

Eunha took hold of Sowon’s hand, for some reason, she just felt like she should, almost as if Sowon was going to leave her for a while, if not for forever. A shiver passed through her smaller body. Sowon had looked over at her, the small gesture received little curiosity however, as the senior just allowed her to do whatever she wanted.

Shoving her right hand in her pants pocket though, she tried to ignore the throbbing sensation of the pulsing glow of the mark on her hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This infirmary is full, please go else-“

“We’re not here to be treated.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To confirm the casualties. I take it this room is completely clear of the toxins?”

The nurse nodded as Sowon pushed past her, Umji taking a break from generating clean air. Finding Soyou still asleep in her cot, Sowon sighed a breath of relief. She was looking better, the wounds to her face were no longer bleeding, the rest of her covered by her blankets. Going back to the group, Sowon had noticed Eunha’s discomfort, but for the sake of Eunha who had wanted to keep things a secret, she kept quiet.

“We’re going to go back to the dorm, get some food, and rest. It’s a weekend after all.”

SinB frowned.

“Wait, we’re just going to leave this just as it is? We were attacked! This pollen, the moreamorawhatever, could have mentally impaired everyone here!”

Sowon remained calm, looking SinB in her angry eyes.

“I don’t want to just leave it here, but we have no choice.”

“Why don’t we tell the staff? The headmaster? Is he even affected by any of this?”

“We aren’t telling the headmaster of our conclusions, I’m sure he’s already thought of them.”

“And he’s not doing anything.”

“I have a good suspicion why, come on. Even if we were to fight back, who are we fighting against? We still don’t know.”

“You’re lying.”

“Fine, I have an idea, not solid, just a hunch.”

Sowon sighed but maintained eye contact with SinB, allowing the younger to use her lie detector, even if she thought it wouldn’t be a good idea. She had initially wanted to keep this all a secret from them, at least until she had proof that her hunch was correct, but it would be similar to the headmaster keeping the students ignorant of what was happening. So, she had decided to tell.

“There’s been one recurring thing with every incident. I’ll explain it to you when we get back to dorm, it’s not for everyone’s ears after all.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Yuju uncapped a bottle of water, looking at it for a second before dumping it over her head in a messy manner.

“You’re saying that the headmaster had all this planned out?”

Her head was overheating with too many ideas that conflicted with rules she had established inside herself. The great man who led this wonderful academy, the man who helped students achieve their dreams of becoming warriors to protect their families could have played a part in the very destruction of those students?

Gathering the water from around her, Yuju dunked her head in water again. Yerin just watched in slight worry, dodging each splash of water easily.

“I gave you the list of suspects with pink eyes. We still don’t know who was trying to kill SinB in the window Umji blocked. It could be him.”

“But the fact that our headmaster…”

Yerin sighed as she pulled a bucket out from under the couch, catching a majority of the water out of the air and scooping it away before dragging Yuju to the shower and just turning the cold water on for the water mage to cool her head.

It broke so many morals, was the headmaster ever helping the students? Did he accept so many students this year just to have a larger pool of test subjects? All these ideas ran through Yuju’s head.

Retiring to their rooms to cool down, generate some new ideas, Sowon sat on the floor of Eunha’s room, her back propped against the side of Eunha’s bed as the younger watched her from her bed, hugging a larger pillow.

“Unnie, you said you knew this mark?”

Sowon looked over, Eunha had removed the rest of the paint covering the mark, it looked to convulse terribly, the glow fluctuating erratically. Her fingers pressed against Eunha’s wrist, just making sure that her heartrate was fine for a little bit of shock. She glanced over at the door to make sure that it was closed properly before moving up to sit beside Eunha on the bed.

“Don’t be too shocked or anything, I swear I’m not doing anything bad.”

She undid the top three buttons of her shirt and tugged down her tank top collar to reveal the top half of a different mark than Eunha’s. In the middle of her chest, marked a single crescent moon, surrounded in a circle of jagged marks that seemed to represent the rocky paths. The moon was not impaled by anything, unlike the sun on Eunha’s hand, which had an arrow through the center.

“What does this mean?”

“Are you the moon they wanted me to sacrifice?”

“Sacrifice?”

Sowon looked sadly at Eunha.

“You’re my moon aren’t you?”

=======================

in a bit, it's going to go downhill. a little bit of....gore? explosions? well, this is my last attempt at writing action horror fiction, I don't think I'm good enough at this genre :/ not that this story is ending soon, it isn't not for another month at least but eh.